The use of honeycomb material in aircraft, structural panels, skies and the like is well known. Such honeycomb material provides a low cost, lightweight, high strength material suitable for use in applications having stringent weight and strength requirements.
Such contemporary honeycomb material is typically formed by applying spaced apart lines of adhesive intermediate adjacent sheets of planar material such as cardboard, paperboard, glass roving, kevlar, etc., in an alternating manner which, when expanded, defines the plurality of cells of a honeycomb material.
As those skilled in the art will appreciate, such nodelines must be formed between adjacent sheets of planar material in an accurate manner, such that, when expanded, the desired honeycomb pattern is formed. This is typically accomplished by applying the nodelines to a sheet of the planar material and then accurately stacking each sheet of the planar material. Such stacking must be accomplished with care, so as to provide the desired alignment. When such stacking is performed by hand, time must be taken to assure that the edges of the sheets are aligned with one another. Jigs or fixtures may be utilized to facilitate such alignment.
Frequently, after the stack of bonded together sheets has been expanded in an accordion-like fashion so as to define a block of open cell honeycomb material, the block is then dipped into a resin, typically a plurality of times, so as to densify it and attain the necessary fiber to resin ratio for the finished composite product.
Those skilled in the art will appreciate that the contemporary process for forming such a honeycomb structure is comparatively elaborate and time consuming. Thus, it is desirable to provide a means for simplifying the process for forming such honeycomb structure, thereby reducing the time and cost associated therewith.